Unworthy

We were wandering around aimlessly in IKEA the other day. Well, THEY were wandering around aimlessly. I made a beeline to the scented candle section whence I was dragged away, kicking and screaming, by my evil captors (read Boss Man and Friend Man). It's just as well. My mother would've disowned if I took home another candle. OCD *chuckle*

In an ingenious ploy to distract me from Lavender and Apple-Cinnamon joy, they offered to discuss my (LONG OVERDUE) birthday gift over a cup of coffee at the restaurant there.

We seated ourselves at the far end of the restaurant, where all other smokers were exiled, on the outskirts of civilization. As we settled, from the corner of my eye, I noticed another lady preparing to occupy a nearby table. She was in her early forties perhaps, comfortably dressed in an all white track suit with matching loafers and raven black hair tied up in a high pony tail, accentuating the sharp lines on her salon-perfect face.

I looked away and fumbled in my bag for my cigarettes. As I lit up, I happened to catch the lady's gaze. She smiled at me and raised her cigarette slightly, the way one would raise a glass of beer at an old friend across a crowded pub. I smiled back. I have always maintained that, even though they will eventually kill us, cigarettes are one of life's best ways of connecting people. I digress.

She had hardly been sitting there 5 minutes when a large man with a ponytail and an overflowing tray of food started hovering close by, looking for a place to sit. Being the nice person she was, she offered him her table and chair, gesturing that she didn't need a table that size and would go sit by the window where there were smaller tables that seated just one person.

He should've just said "Thank you", sat down and stuffed his face till he dropped dead from heartburn. But did he? NOOOOOOO. The disgusting lard bucket, with his shirt so tight his belly tried to escape from every gap between every button, hissed "Why don't you sit with me? What's wrong? We'll sit together." His face rotted into a smile that made my stomach churn.

Nice Lady politely declined, 3 times. Finally, she turned her chair towards the window so she wouldn't have to see his sorry excuse for a face and started to talk on the phone. Lurch in the meantime, spent his entire lunchtime staring holes into her bum. He didn't take his eyes off it for a second.

I wanted his fork to "accidentally slip out of his hand" and land in his left eye.

As she passed his table on her way out, he muttered something to her that I didn't quite catch. She caught it though. Without breaking stride, she flashed him a look that probably meant he was going to find a bloody horse head in his bed tomorrow morning, and left.

It's amazing how people can take a random act of kindness and fuck it up completely.